Bits and Pieces
by kathiann
Summary: A collection of unrelated one shots and drabbles. Written from various prompts in various places. See notes for details.
1. Words Unspoken

**Authors Note: **This is intended to be a collection of unrelated on-shots and drabbles for The Mentalist. First up, a perfect (100 word) drabble in response to the March Paint it Red challenge "All the Words Unspoken".

**Words Not Spoken**

She placed a thin letter on the grave and held it in place with a small smooth stone. The edges fluttered in the wind and she knew that it would fly away sooner, rather than later, but she didn't care. She stood slowly, brushing fresh cut grass off the flat gray stone marker with her foot, blinking back hot tears. It had ended too soon. There were so many things left unsaid, so many things that she wanted to say. Now it was too late. The letter was all she had. A final note of all the words left unsaid.


	2. Old

**Authors Note: **I didn't know what I was going to add to this story, but I had music on while I was (not) doing homework and a string version of George Gershwin's Embraceable You came on and I thought of weddings and since it's easier to type out 100 words that 1000, I came up with this. A 100 word drabble.

**Old**

She didn't feel old very often, but she did today. The ceremony had been lovely. The bride had worn a dress that probably cost more than her rent for a year, and the groom had looked so in love that she was certain that he had no idea what was going on at all. Her oldest nephew getting married. How was it that her brother had ended up so normal when she and Tommy had ended up so messed up? But none of that mattered today. Today was about celebration and family and feeling, just for a little while, old.


	3. Mrs Red

**Authors Note: **While cleaning out my flash drive full of "important" files I came across a folder of old "stuff" that had berried in it an old file of half started and half thought out fic ideas. This is one of them. An episode tag to the season one ep "Mrs. Red". Not quite a traditional 100 word drabble, this one is 207. TO set the scene, Rigsby and Van Pelt are doing surveillance on a woman that they think is a murderer. As I recall, she wasn't actually. In fact, if memory serves, she's a cougar that Rigsby ends up going out with, hence Van Pelt's less than nice opinion of her. But that is simply going off memory. I could totally have the wrong episode, though I don't think I do. ENJOY!

**Mrs. Red**

Rigsby is eating a salad. He's sitting next to me in the car and he's eating a salad. I didn't buy it for him, he bought it for himself. We are sitting in the car in the parking lot at the marina, watching that _woman_, and he's eating a salad.

Maybe it's nothing; maybe he's just trying to eat health after his poor state of health. I'm staring at him, I have to stop staring at him. Say something, say something. The case, right that's why we're here.

"What is she doing?" Stupid question, obviously she's putting on her makeup, but Rigsby won't know that, so it's a valid question, right?

"I don't know, maybe she likes the water." He's shoveling salad into his mouth. I've only seen him do that with things that could clog your arteries if you spent too much time outside in the winter in Alaska. And here he was eating a salad without a cream based dressing. This was odd. Maybe I'm starting to wear off on him. Or he's just concerned about his health. Or, is it possible for mind control aliens to come and tell you what to eat instead of how to take over the world?


	4. Cocaine-Jimi Hendrix

**Authors Note:** Another fic from the recesses of my flash drive. This was, I think, meant to me the first of a 10 Ipod challenge fic. For some reason this was the only one in the file...not sure what happened to the other nine, if there ever was another nine. Anyway, based on and named for the Ji,i Hendrix song "Cocaine", 140 words

**Cocaine-Jimi Hendrix**

It was like some scene out of a cheesy movie. Cho was standing on the corner, trying his best to look like a lowlife thug strung out on whatever was handy and cheep, and Van Pelt was walking up and down the street offering her services to any paying customer who would come along. Really they were looking for a hooker killer, but it was still funny. At least it was to Jane. It wasn't to Lisbon who had broken her arm taking down their last 'John' that had taken Van Pelt up on her offer yesterday night. She was stuck at her desk, mandated medical leave. For at lest another two weeks she was on desk duty. So she was watching the team from a tiny computer screen in her office and snapping every time she heard Jane laugh.


	5. Jack and the Bean Stock

**Authors Note: **This lovely little piece of silly/crack fic is brought to you by the end of school and a conversation on facebook that started with the question "Why didn't they just eat the cow in Jack and the Bean Stock" I have made The Mentalist Team my friends. Because it is much more fun this way :)

**Jack and the Bean Stock**

"Do you know what I wonder?" Rigsby asked leaning back in in his desk chair and twisting side to side slightly.

"No," Cho said, not looking up from the open file on his desk.

Ignoring him, Rigsby spoke again. "In _Jack and the Bean Stock_, why didn't they just eat the cow when it had stopped giving milk?"

"Wouldn't have been much of a story." Cho said, still not looking up.

"It could still work. They eat the cow then Jack foes searching or food. Maybe he's begging for food, maybe he steals it. We know he's a thief." Rigsby clearly wasn't going to let go of his idea.

"It was an old cow. The mean was probably too tough to eat." Jane poke from his spot on the couch, swinging his feet to the ground and sitting up, interested in where the conversation was going.

"Ok, sure, but if you cook it long enough, or make sausage..." Rigsby let the thought linger, clearly not sure where to go from there.

"Not everyone has the skill to butcher an animal as large as a cow. Not to mention that they probably wouldn't be able to eat it before it went bad." Cho said, finally looking up from his work.

"Ok, ok. But I still think if they were that desperate that they could manage it somehow."

"Maybe," Van Pelt said, speaking for the first time, "they couldn't eat the cow because it was the reincarnation of Jack's grandmother. It wouldn't be right to eat her."

"Yeah, but-" Wayne started before being cut off by Lisbon who had come out of her office half way though Van Pelt's suggestion.

"It's a fairy tale! For crying out loud. British people in the 1700's didn't believe in reincarnation. It's silly story for kids. Now get back to work."

Jane chuckled slightly as he laid back down on his couch. Cho shook his head an went back to his file. Van Pelt watched Lisbon walk back towards her office before smiling at Rigsby and returning her gaze to the computer screen in front of her.

Rigsby still sat in his chair, staring off into space and thinking. _Could the cow have been the Grandmother? It would make sense why they were so attached to it. Maybe the guy who gave Jack the beans promised to take care of the cow and not eat it..._

"Rigsby!" Lisbon's voice from her office door made him jump. "Stop thinking about it and get back to work!"

"Yes, Boss," he mumbled turning his attention to the discarded stack of files on his desk. Next to him Cho smirked.


	6. I Beg Your Pardon!

**Authors Note: **Written for the Mentalist Big Bang Vent Drabble Tag. Prompt supplied by little_firestar "the butler did it". Just a nice piece of fluff.

**I Beg Your Pardon!**

They stood in front of a rather opulent house in the middle of the California desert, cursing the murder that brought them to this God forsaken piece of dry burning earth.

"Why is it always in the middle of the summer that we get called to the desert?" Rigsby asked, stepping close to Cho and trying to keep his voice low so that no one else would hear him. It didn't work.

"Murderers aren't usually concerned with your comfort levels, Rigsby. Lets get inside and see what's going on." Lisbon snapped, clearly not an happier about being on this case than Rigsby was.

They were greeted at the door not by the local sheriff as was expected, but by a man dressed in a rather formal looking suite and tie. The man looked not unlike Tim Curry in the 80's movie "Clue".

"Hello," the man said with a faint British accent, "I am John Bishop, the butler, if you would like to follow me I can show you to the room with the body."

Not waiting for an answer John Bishop turned and walked into the house. The dim coolness of the inside of the mansion, for lack of a better word, was a welcome respite from the heat and glare of the outside. It took a few minutes for the team to adjust to the drastic difference and follow the butler.

When they arrived at what would probably be called a sitting room, the team saw right away the body that was sprawled in front of a cold and disused fireplace, the back of the head bashed in with what was probably the fireplace poker left hastily next to the body.

Most of the team listened as the sheriff explained how they had been called to the house and who the victim was, the son of the owner of the house, currently in Europe for the summer. Jane, being his normal self, was not listening so much as wandering around the room picking up on the little details that most people missed.

Lisbon as in the middle of asking a question of the sheriff when Jane, without preamble, shouted "The butler did it!" And gestured wildly to the man who was standing quietly and out of the way in a corner of the room.

"What?" Lisbon asked, clearly annoyed.

"I beg your pardon!" The butler protested, clearly offended.

"Nah, I'm just kidding. I just always wanted to say that." Jane said with a chuckle.

"Jane..." Lisbon began, clearly working up to a rather public reprimand.

"But in all seriousness, the murderer is clearly this young mans lover. He brought him here to break things off and it did not go well. I would look into who he was seeing, not officially, but on the side, and you shall have your killer." And then Jane walked out of the room.

"Is he always like that?" The sheriff asked Lisbon quietly.

"Yeah. But you get used to it." And then, as though Jane's outburst had never happened, she continued the question that Jane had interrupted.


	7. Black Cat

**Authors Note: **Written for the Mentalist Revers Bang drabble tag prompt "black cat". Just a fun little piece calling to mind shades of early season 2.

**Black Cat**

Cho stood on the sidewalk in front of the victims sister's house, staring at the front door. He knew it was irrational, that's what everyone kept telling him at any rate, but he just couldn't help it. School yard tales of ghosts and bogie men mingled with his grandmothers' warning on witches and the devil and he just couldn't do it. He took a deep breath and a step forward and stopped.

He was being watched.

He couldn't do this. Much as Jane was often reminding himself that there was no such thing as psychics, Cho ran a mantra through his head. _There is no such thing as bad luck. There are no evil omens. You can do this._

"Dude." Rigbsy said, coming up behind him and almost making him jump. "It's just a cat. It's not going to hurt you."

And then, ignoring all things in the world that said that black cats were bad luck he bounded up the front walk and scratched the cat on the front steps on the top of it's head.

Cho just shook his head, Rigsby was an idiot anyway, what did he know.

"You talk to the sister." He called from the safety of the sidewalk. "I'll wait in the car."

Rigsby looked back of his shoulder. "Yeah, whatever."

Without waiting to see him go in the house, Cho turned and walked back to the car.


	8. Nothing

**Authors Note: **Written for the June 2013 Paint It Red Challenge. Episode tag to Red Sky in the Morning (season 2 finale).

**Nothing**

He had been so close to Red John. He had felt his breath on his face. He could have touched him had he not been strapped to a chair. And yet he had nothing. No new evidence. No new leads. Nothing. A raspy voice and a fragment of a poem about the beauty of a monster. And he was unsure if that monster was him, or the killer speaking. They were both deadly in their own ways. And he knew that this would only end one way. He knew that nothing was going to "fix" the problems other than him.


	9. I'm Sorry

**Authors Note: **I started writing this for the reverse big bang, then realized that the eventual conclusion wasn't going to be happy as the artist had requested, so I changed it to a drabble and here we are.

**I'm sorry**

"I'm sorry." she whispered, as the gun went off in her hand and his world came crashing down around him.

He'd never really understood what people meant by the world moving in slow motion around them, but right at that moment he did. He'd not expected her to be there. He'd not expected her to shoot. This was supposed to be about him.

His plan.

His revenge.

The man beside him fell to the floor, three spots of bright red blossoming on his chest. The woman across from him lowered the gun. And he went running never looking back.


End file.
